Relics - Einstein's Brain
- Episode aired Apr 1, 1994
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So strange, yet so interesting
Possibly one of the most obscure movies I've ever seen. Looks like it was made for tv, and only remains in existence because someone recorded it off a Swedish tv station (hence the subs), and then uploaded it to YouTube. The dialogue spoken in Japanese is untranslated, but as more than 90% is in English, it's still easy to follow if you don't speak Japanese.
It involves a Japanese professor travelling to America in search of Einstein's brain. He's an unusual but captivating and oddly likeable subject for a documentary. His determination towards his strange goal is both funny and somewhat admirable, and I love how he approaches so many people and just bluntly asks them if they know where Einstein's brain is located.
I wish it had been a little longer, but it's compact and does a lot in its 60-ish minute runtime. Feels sort of likely could be a Werner Herzog documentary, with its offbeat humour and unusual subject matter treated with sincerity, though without the German master's iconic narration.
Also completely unintentional, but there's a shot of the World Trade Center towers in this that's quite haunting in hindsight. Connections are made to Einstein and the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and seven years after this documentary, New York City itself would be attacked, and those towers would fall, in a smaller but still devastating and world altering destructive event.
It involves a Japanese professor travelling to America in search of Einstein's brain. He's an unusual but captivating and oddly likeable subject for a documentary. His determination towards his strange goal is both funny and somewhat admirable, and I love how he approaches so many people and just bluntly asks them if they know where Einstein's brain is located.
I wish it had been a little longer, but it's compact and does a lot in its 60-ish minute runtime. Feels sort of likely could be a Werner Herzog documentary, with its offbeat humour and unusual subject matter treated with sincerity, though without the German master's iconic narration.
Also completely unintentional, but there's a shot of the World Trade Center towers in this that's quite haunting in hindsight. Connections are made to Einstein and the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and seven years after this documentary, New York City itself would be attacked, and those towers would fall, in a smaller but still devastating and world altering destructive event.
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- Jeremy_Urquhart
- Dec 27, 2021
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